South Korea's Warning for Washington

Democracy survives when brave people care more about ideals than power. But such people aren't always in plentiful supply.

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A right-wing wannabe authoritarian president—a leader who attacks the press, is accused of abusing power for personal gain, uses his power to block investigations into his family’s potential corruption, hopes to stay in office to avoid heading to prison, and only seems to have concepts of a plan to address his nation’s inflation and health care—declared martial law earlier today.

This is not a dystopian fever dream for what may soon come to pass in the United States, but instead a rapidly unfolding crisis in South Korea, where President Yoon Suk Yeol shocked his nation with a hastily executed surprise power grab under the pretext of an unspecified military threat from North Korea and enemies within.

So began my rapid response piece in The Atlantic yesterday, unpacking a wild and deeply foolish few hours in South Korea’s politics, as an incompetent, unpopular president tried a desperate gambit in autocracy to save himself, all as his political fortunes waned beyond repair. In a surprise address to the nation, President Yoon said that he spoke “with a feeling of spitting blood.” He then decried the “den of criminals” in Korea’s National Assembly, declared martial law to “protect” the nation from them, and finally tried to deploy law enforcement officers and buses to physically block access to the National Assembly.

As with much of this martial law plot, that effort was a bit of clown car authoritarianism, as it turned out that a majority of the members of the National Assembly were already in the building. Since martial law can be overturned by a simple vote, it didn’t take long for all 190 lawmakers who were already in the building to vote to rescind it—including all of the president’s ostensible political allies. As a result, the president was forced to lift the martial law order. He now faces the prospect of a swift impeachment—and quite possibly significant prison time after he leaves office.

Korean authoritarianism was largely vanquished in 1987, in the “June Democratic Struggle,” which prompted a major democratic transition, further consolidating into an advanced, consolidated democracy after 2002. But for several scary hours last night, that old authoritarian streak was resurrected, with extraordinary images that—to older Koreans—looked disconcertingly familiar.

Before we get to what this means—and why those in fragile democracies around the world (and especially the United States) might want to pay attention for some key lessons from yesterday’s tumultuous events—we first need to understand a bit of relevant background.

Every incumbent politician since 2022 has faced political headwinds due to global inflation. But Korea’s President Yoon made a bad situation far worse by being not just incompetent, but also (allegedly) rather scandal-prone. Many of the scandals involve his wife, and when lawmakers tried to investigate her shady dealings, the president used his veto power to block them. Then, in the last few weeks, a series of leaked audio recordings have showcased—in damning, juicy fashion—a scandal in which cash was apparently exchanged in order to secure a coveted party nomination for a legislative seat.

These drip-drip-drip scandals, combined with economic malaise, a health care crisis, under-performing public services, and a general sense that Yoon’s government was a corrupt, incompetent lame duck administration, took a political toll. Last week, Yoon had the support of just 19 percent of the population.

The big picture is this: President Yoon was embattled, unpopular, and likely felt he was running out of options. So, like many delusional presidents before (and more to come in the future), he wrongly believed that his best strategy was to consolidate power through a sort of autogolpe, or “self-coup”—and that the country, its generals, and its political elites would just comply.

Much to his surprise, they didn’t. In what may have been one of the shortest periods of martial law in history, Yoon backed down and Korean democracy was, for a time, saved.

The situation is still unfolding, so I won’t be foolish enough to suggest precisely what will happen next, but there are already several key lessons to draw from this botched power-grab.

I: When autocrats try to seize power, speed matters

First, the speed with which Yoon faced consequences for his authoritarian machinations is a model for other fragile democracies. When would-be autocrats try to grab power, dithering is a losing strategy. In those moments of concocted crisis, politicians, military leaders, civil society, and, yes, the public on the streets have to kick back hard—and fast.

Once the crisis is defused, as currently seems the case, there needs to be swift political action to ensure the would-be autocrat is punished. Yoon, for his part, is facing the prospect of the end of his political career through an embarrassing, quick impeachment (and the Korea specialists I’ve spoken to have told me that prison is also likely).

The behavior of Korea’s political elites—including those from Yoon’s own party who stood up for democracy and devoured one of their own—puts the United States during the Trump era in a particularly bad light by comparison. Virtually nobody from America’s political elite was punished for January 6th, for example, and the chief instigator (Trump himself) will instead soon be rewarded with a trip back to the White House—and he is poised to issue pardons for the relatively small group of insurrectionist foot soldiers who were held accountable. As for the people who orchestrated the systematic attempt to illegally keep Trump in power in 2020, well, many of them are about to be placed in plum posts, and one, Kash Patel, may actually be leading the FBI, the very group that’s charged with investigating such crimes.

The authoritarian foxes are being put in charge of the vulnerable henhouses that are America’s broken democratic institutions.

II: Politicians don’t care about your posts

Second, Korea offers a lesson about the role of protests that fragile democracies—including the United States in the Trump era—would be wise to learn. The US, despite grotesque inequality and glaring social problems, is, in many ways, a decadent society. Huge numbers of people have amassed extraordinary riches, our finite attention is diverted to fake dramas on The Masked Singer, or celebrity gossip, or brain rotting dances on TikTok, rather than on real dramas of human suffering and democratic decay. And for those comparatively diligent few who remain politically vigilant, many of the outlets for outrage and anger are converted into broadly meaningless digital posts rather than real world activism.

Not so in Seoul, where popular protest has been shown to effectively constrain governments who abuse their power.

South Korea teaches us that swift and rapid mass protest—the kind of protest that creates genuine headaches for politicians—is a better use of time and energy than ranting into the digital ether to an audience of trolls and other like-minded souls. Authoritarian politicians do not care about your posts. They do care if millions of people are in the streets. And when authoritarian power grabs are made, as happened last night, that’s when the public can form a physical barrier, a human bulwark protecting the abstractions that are democratic institutions.

III: The perils of presidentialism

Third, the raging, esoteric debates within the field of political science got a little burst of relevance yesterday, as South Korea’s presidential system comes under the microscope. For the last three decades, political scientists have been arguing over a provocative essay by a renowned and now late scholar Juan Linz called “The Perils of Presidentialism.”

Linz basically argued that presidential systems are particularly prone to abuse and breakdown into authoritarian rule because they create a uniquely strong link between the popularly elected executive leader and “the people.” This popular legitimacy differs from any other figure in the political system, because legislators are only elected by a slice of the country. But crucially, this popular connection that presidents claim also differs from prime ministers, who are not directly elected by the public, but are instead selected from within parliament.

The argument, advanced by Linz and taken up by many political science scholars since, is that presidential systems are therefore more prone to a collapse into authoritarian rule. Writing in 1990, Linz noted that there seemed to be one major exception—a sole presidential system that has been remarkably able to avoid democratic collapse: the United States. But, perhaps in a bit of rather ominous foreshadowing, Linz speculated that the risks remained anywhere that presidentialism lurked.

“Heavy reliance on the personal qualities of a political leader—on the virtue of a statesman, if you will—is a risky course, for one never knows if such a man can be found to fill the presidential office.” Last month, such a woman was found, but she was narrowly rejected by voters in favor of precisely the kind of figure that Linz warned about.

This political science debate, of course, doesn’t have much immediate practical value in navigating the risks of authoritarian power grabs. The United States is and long will remain a presidential system, warts and all. But Linz’s writings do provide an important warning, one that was just beautifully underscored by the Korean political system.

Constitutions, checks and balances, norms, institutions, even laws, are unnaturally occurring human creations that are only as strong as the people who uphold them. Rule of law is an idea, not a magical self-enforcing unicorn that will come to save us when we need it most. In times of crisis, brave people save democracy. And that yields a worrisome truth: when the system is tested, it only survives when those defending it care more about principles than power.

IV: These days, democracy usually dies a slow death

The final lesson from Yoon’s incompetent power grab is a clarion call for vigilance: it’s easier to defend democracy when the threat is overt, direct, and immediate, such as a televised declaration of martial law.

These days, democracies tend to die with a steady, slow whimper rather than a deafening bang; it’s more erosion of norms and politicization of rule of law than tanks and jackboots in the street. After all, it’s harder to organize mass protests when the death of democracy comes from the relentless hammering of seemingly minor norm violations that, over time, chip away at the institutional pillars of a democratic society and turn them into shaky, crumbling wrecks.

South Korea, facing an unexpected crisis, just did pro-democracy citizens around the world a great favor: it showed that resistance is not futile, that standing up for democracy can work, and that authoritarians can be exposed as incompetent weaklings who only play at strength—so long as enough brave politicians and a large enough segment of the public refuse to back down.

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